There's all kinds of alternatives to iTunes side loading. Dropbox, email, web links, etc. Though I agree, OPDS catalog support would be awesome. But that would likely run afoul of Apple's App Store policies for ebook apps, as OPDS feeds could include "Buy" links, and it would be really hard for us to "filter" those out from other types of web links.
-M

There is already several apps in the Appstore that support OPDS catalogs (Megareader, Shubook, Stanza, etc.) This argument doesn't hold water

You might want to try the free aHomeIcon app from the Apple app store on your iPad. The process has several steps but it's not that hard to do. Copy the URL you want to use, select the URL button in the aHomeIcon app (on the 2d page), it will ask if you want to use the URL from the clipboard, and then creates a webapp that you add to your home screen (this is the step that's a little tricky since you do this twice, once in the app and once in Safari). The app give you the ability change the icon and title (on the 1st page) before you do the add-to step. There are a couple of video tutorials in the app if you need help. Still playing around with it but it looks good for the simple needs I have.

I believe there are Android apps that can create a home screen widget to launch a URL but I've not used Android in several months so I'm not up-to-date on the choices.

The aHomeIcon app works great at setting up the app on my home screen. thanks:

There's all kinds of alternatives to iTunes side loading. Dropbox, email, web links, etc. Though I agree, OPDS catalog support would be awesome. But that would likely run afoul of Apple's App Store policies for ebook apps, as OPDS feeds could include "Buy" links, and it would be really hard for us to "filter" those out from other types of web links.
-M

How can that be?

Megareader, stanza and several others have been approved by the Apple store, and they all have the feature of adding custom catalogs.

Please consider adding this feature, but if you do it, do it right and make it background downloads. Some of the others, (Megareader notably) only download one book at a time from a catalog.

It should really be like Stanza, where multiple books download in the background while you continue to browse/read.

Micah, thanks for "Collections." That is a big improvement to the app for anyone who has a fairly large number of books loaded.

Two small things, however:

1) In the "Library" list please let me know what collection(s) each book is in. I have quite a few manuals (camera, airplane, etc.) and there is no easy way AFIK for me to tell whether they are in the proper collection or in any collection at all. If I have 50+ books on my library list and have forgotten to put one of them into the appropriate collection it is as good as lost.

2) The "Collections" list is ordered according to when I added the collection, oldest to newest. This is not very helpful. I would like to put "Library" at the bottom and sort the rest of the list alphabetically but I can't figure out how to change the order. Please add this feature or let me know where it is hidden.

I'm not sure exactly what you are seeing, but I myself have run across a few epubs that have large margins applied in the HTML/CSS formatting - and it is really, really annoying for sure. When you go into the formatting tab in Bluefire Reader, and turn "Use Publisher Formatting" to "off" we try to set the Body Margins to zero. That works for many EPUB's, but the problem is, some EPUB's force margins in various non-standard ways including the use of custom CSS Selectors. With the rendering engine that we use, we can't simply "strip" all formatting from an EPUB, (I wouldn't want to even if we could) we can only over-ride the values applied to "known/standard" CSS Selectors in EPUB files.

If you run into any non-DRM epubs that have that problem, and happen to understand EPUB markup, I'd love to know what markup they are using to set those margins (or post the StyleSheet here). When we know about problematic markup, we can fix it, but we don't have a way to "fix" non-standard markup that we don't know about.

I had a look at an ePub which was not readable due to the wide margins. There were three places that affected this:

Micah, thanks for "Collections." That is a big improvement to the app for anyone who has a fairly large number of books loaded.

Two small things, however:

1) In the "Library" list please let me know what collection(s) each book is in. I have quite a few manuals (camera, airplane, etc.) and there is no easy way AFIK for me to tell whether they are in the proper collection or in any collection at all. If I have 50+ books on my library list and have forgotten to put one of them into the appropriate collection it is as good as lost.

2) The "Collections" list is ordered according to when I added the collection, oldest to newest. This is not very helpful. I would like to put "Library" at the bottom and sort the rest of the list alphabetically but I can't figure out how to change the order. Please add this feature or let me know where it is hidden.

OK, we finally we able to get a new release on iTunes App Store. Version 1.9.1 went live today and includes the following enhancements.
1. Improved management of large libraries
2. Cleaner display of cover images
3. Improved text selection on iOS6 devices
4. “Back” button for easier navigation back from footnotes and other internal links
5. Fixed a bug that could cause the app to hang on jailbroken devices

OK, we finally we able to get a new release on iTunes App Store. Version 1.9.1 went live today and includes the following enhancements.
1. Improved management of large libraries
2. Cleaner display of cover images
3. Improved text selection on iOS6 devices
4. “Back” button for easier navigation back from footnotes and other internal links
5. Fixed a bug that could cause the app to hang on jailbroken devices

Hello Micah, so have you decided at last not to provide OPDS catalog support?

I would appreciate if you could make a definite yes/no statement so I can decide wether to stick with Bluefire or move on to Marvin.

I'm still on iOS 5 on this iPad 3, but text selection is still a huge struggle. It has put me off using Bluefire Reader in the past, and today's update has not improved the issue. Selecting text is slow and jerky, and after I let go of the screen, the selection marker is typically in some other place than I wanted it to be and than what was indicated by the zoom view.

I'm still on iOS 5 on this iPad 3, but text selection is still a huge struggle. It has put me off using Bluefire Reader in the past, and today's update has not improved the issue. Selecting text is slow and jerky, and after I let go of the screen, the selection marker is typically in some other place than I wanted it to be and than what was indicated by the zoom view.